Culpeper County Sheriff’s Office

The colonial-era sheriff of Culpeper County performed many functions upon the office’s establishment in 1761: levying fines, collecting debts, executing warrants, summoning juries and supervising elections.

The position was considered so powerful that terms were normally limited to one year. Back then, the jailor lived at the jail along with the inmates.
In 1987, under Sheriff R.E. Peters, an addition was added to the jail at 131 W. Cameron St., expanding the capacity from 16 to 34 beds. However,
overcrowding soon developed into an ongoing issue.

Widespread budget issues have pushed talk of building a new jail to the back burner. As an interim measure, the county recently renovated the jail, adding bunk space to the existing building, which houses an average of 70 people daily.

As the county’s population has swelled to about 45,000, space for employees of the Sheriff’s Office has remained at a premium, so in 1997 the county purchased a building formerly occupied by the Virginia Unemployment Office, moving records, patrol, investigations and crime prevention into the extra space.

Now, current Sheriff Jim Branch, who took office in January, supervises about 90 deputies and 20 civilians who perform some of those same colonial-era functions, along with many new ones. The newer functions include around-the-clock patrols of the county, service as school resource officers, crime
prevention education and investigations.